Leo Express informed the Belgian railway organizer of its intention to operate the cross -border services overnight between Ostend and Bratislava, Slovakia. A single train pair is scheduled to be operated daily from December 13, 2026, when up to 49 stations are called on a road extending across Germany and the Czech Republic.
The organizer will determine the economic impact that will have the new service on the current operations.
The train heading in the west of Bratislava will leave at 14.44, as it arrived at Ostand at 09.52 the next day. East, the train will leave the Belgian port at 19.10 and arrive in the Slovak capital at 14.18 o’clock the next day.
Leo Express says that trains are timid to communicate with other Leo Express services, such as Přerov, where connections will be available for Prague, Ostrava, Krakow, Poland and Košice in Slovakia.
Leo Express does not plan to apply for the legal status of the operator on the Belgian network and aims to cooperate with an accredited operations partner in Belgium.
The trains will provide sitting places, rkets and sleeping places in the renovated trainers, which were transported by multi -voltage Siemens Vectron, which operate at a maximum of 160 km/h. The initial train capacity is expected to be in about 450 passengers, as it rose to 550 from the beginning of the 2029 timetable in December 2028.
Earlier this month, a train from Talgo VI coaches with the negative inclination, owned by the Spanish national operator Renf, the majority shareholder in Liu Express, arrived at the VUZ test center in Willim in the Czech Republic.
According to the Spanish newspaper El Economista, Renfe can provide three trains with an area of 13 km/h cars for new service. It is understood that they were withdrawn from the services of Madrid – Algeciras at the end of last year.
Talgo coaches will require a mandate to use it in Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Germany and Belgium if they will operate Ostend – Bratislava. It is not known if permission for use will be obtained in other countries at the same time or whether the current license will be kept.
“It is too early at this stage to predict the place of deployment of these vehicles,” Leo Express, a spokesman for IRJ.
The spokesman added that notifying the Belgian organizer is not tangible plans. “It is an opportunity to study open communications. After that, we will only consider applying for access to the path, and based on the offer submitted by the infrastructure director, we will finally decide whether or not these tracks will be accepted.”
